Please see below ITM weekly update 4th February 2010.


1. ITM Upcoming dates- including ITM Regional Network Meetings, Working

2. Job Advertisement: Coordinator with Tallaght Travellers Community
Development Project

3. Job Advertisement: The Southern Area Action with Travellers (SAAT)
Safe & Well Project are currently recruiting for full time and part
time staff

4. Irish RAXEN National Focal Point seeks Research Officer

5. A Marvelous Victory by Howard Zinn

6. EAPN to host international conference on February 19th

7. ENAR to coordinate European Week against Racism in Ireland

8. M.Soc.Sc in Third Sector Management for Voluntary and Community
Workers, at University College Cork

9. National Traveller Suicide Awareness Project strategic planning
event 23rd March

10. National Traveller Suicide Awareness Project Network 16th February

11. National Traveller Suicide Awareness Project Strategic Planning
23rd February

12. ITM newsletter- call for submissions!

13.  Use the ITM Email update to get your message across!





Please Note the following dates for your Diary:

The ITM Accommodation Working Group - 10th March - venue to be
confirmed for Dublin

ITM Accommodation Working Group - 28th April  (most likely to be a site visit)

ITM Accommodation Working Group - 9th June - venue to be confirmed for Dublin

For more details on the above, please contact Collette Spears or Biddy
Connors on itmaccommodation@gmail.com or 01-6796577


ITM Northwest Regional Network 25th of March in the Northside CDP at 11am-1pm.

For more details on the above, please contact Rose Marie Maughan on
0876239792 or email rosenorthwestitm@gmail.com  for information


Tallaght Travellers CDP invites applications for the following position: Co-ordinator (Full-time)

The project co-ordinator is responsible for the overall co-ordination, day to day management and implementation of the workplan of TTCDP. Working within a community development approach the co-ordinator is responsible for providing leadership to the successful management, maintenance and development of the work of TTCDP.


Essential qualities for candidates include: a knowledge of Traveller Issues, a recognised relevant qualification, two years experience in project management, organisational, communication and leadership skills, commitment to equality.  Desirable qualities include an in-depth knowledge and understanding of the Community & Voluntary Sector and a good understanding of the policies that impact on Travellers.

This position is funded by the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs under the Community Development Programme

Additional support/training will be available to the right candidates for above post pursuant to Section 33 of the Employment Equality Act 1998 as amended by section 22 of the Equality Act, 2004. TTCDP particularly encourages applications from the Traveller Community.

To apply please return completed application form with questionnaire to the Chairperson TTCDP, Unit 6, Killinarden Enterprise Centre, Killinarden, Tallaght, Dublin 24.  Closing date for applications for all posts is 5pm, Friday 12th February

For application forms and job description please contact the secretary at 01 4664334 or email ttcdp@gofree.indigo.ie

Tallaght Travellers Community Development Project is an Equal Opportunities Employer.  Funding is provided by the Irish Government under the National Development Plan 2007-2013



Southern Area Action with Travellers and Craigavon Travellers Support Committee (CTSC) wish to recruit the following posts to work with the Traveller Community in the Southern Health and Social Services Trust Area to take forward the SAAT Safe and Well Project.

1 x Health Worker, 1 x Community Development Worker and 1 x Youth Worker
Salary ?20858.00 per annum Scale 5 pt 24
Full time 35 hours per week
Fixed Term Contract until 31st October 2014

Key skills and experience required for these posts:
Hold a third level qualification in a related field (health, education, social care, community development, youth work) OR 3 years experience in an operational role which includes youth work/ community development and interagency/multi sectoral working 

Recent experience and knowledge of Travellers and/or BME groups

The post holder will be required to have access to and the use of a car and a full current driving licence or demonstrate how they can meet the Travel requirements of this post

Regular travelling throughout the Southern Trust area will be associated with this post

2 x Part time Project Support Workers
Salary ?7519.50 per annum Scale 2 pt 12
Part time 16 hours per week
Fixed Term Contract until 31st October 2014

Key skills and experience required for this post:
Good communication skills Within the last 3 years have 1 years active experience of community development. Direct experience and knowledge of Travellers culture and issues

The post holder will be required to have access to and the use of a car and a full current driving licence or demonstrate how they can meet the Travel requirements of this post

Regular travelling throughout the Southern Trust area will be associated with this post

Applicants must demonstrate on their application form how they meet the requirements of this post.  Please note that the above criteria may be enhanced to facilitate short listing.

These posts are funded by the Big Lottery Fund.

For a full job description and application pack, please apply in writing to;

SAAT Safe & Well Project, Room 210, Tower Hill, Armagh BT61 9DR

The closing date for returning applications for the full time positions is

12 February 2010 @ 4.00pm

The closing date for returning applications for the part time positions is

26 February 2010 @ 4.00pm

CTSC is an equal opportunities employer and would welcome applications from all communities and particularly welcome applicants from members of the Travelling community

The Irish RAXEN National Focal Point (NFP) for RAXEN Europe is currently seeking a Research Officer for a position of up to one-year to join the NFP team of academics and researchers involved in conducting research on the following three discrete and short
projects:


The Situation of Asylum Seekers: Asylum Procedures and the Right to Work Racist and Related Hate Crimes in the EU A complimentary data collection report on issues relating to racism, xenophobia and related intolerances

The research officer position provides a great opportunity to expand
qualitative research and statistical skills, and work with a team of
academics, researchers and activists in the area of equality, human
rights and social justice.

Making an Application:

 If you are interested in this position, please send an academic cv,
two unedited writing samples and a letter by email explaining why you
have the relevant skills for this position to :

Joanne Garvey, Administrator, ICCL, by email joanne.garvey@iccl.ie by Weds, 10
February 2010.

Interviews may be organised in February 2010 and the RAXEN Research
Officer will be required to start working on the project as soon as
possible.

If you have any queries about this position, please forward them to
Joanne Garvey, Tel: (01) 799 4504.



Howard Zinn was an American activist and historian who passed away on
the 27th January. While he never spoke directly about the issues
Travellers face, as a human rights activist interested in the power of
Movements he wrote a lot that could inspire activists everywhere.
While his loss will be felt by many, this short piece from his last
book be helpful to ITM members as it deals with questions that i think
we all as activists face daily or weekly- how to keep spirited despite
the lack of progress. I hope you enjoy it.


American historian, playwright and social activist Howard Zinn died
January 27, 2010, aged 87. His light will shine bright into the far
off future. A new socially just world will owe a great debt to Howard
and others like him who gave so much of themselves for us. -- ZNet
Staff

Below is an excerpt from his recent book "A Power Governments Cannot
Suppress" published by City Lights Books, www.citylights.com.  At the
bottom of this commentary are links to various ZNet obituaries
remembering Howard.

A marvelous victory:

In this world of war and injustice, how does a person manage to stay
socially engaged, committed to the struggle, and remain healthy
without burning out or becoming resigned or cynical? I am totally
confident not that the world will get better, but that we should not
give up the game before all the cards have been played. The metaphor
is deliberate; life is a gamble. Not to play is to foreclose any
chance of winning. To play, to act, is to create at least a
possibility of changing the world.

There is a tendency to think that what we see in the present moment
will continue. We forget how often we have been astonished by the
sudden crumbling of institutions, by extraordinary changes in people's
thoughts, by unexpected eruptions of rebellion against tyrannies, by
the quick collapse of systems of power that seemed invincible. What
leaps out from the history of the past hundred years is its utter
unpredictability. A revolution to overthrow the czar of Russia in that
most sluggish of semi feudal empires not only startled the most
advanced imperial powers but took Lenin himself by surprise and sent
him rushing by train to Petrograd. Who would have predicted the
bizarre shifts of World War II-the Nazi-Soviet pact (those
embarrassing photos of von Ribbentrop and Molotov shaking hands), and
the German army rolling through Russia, apparently invincible, causing
colossal casualties, being turned back at the gates of Leningrad, on
the western edge of Moscow, in the streets of Stalingrad, followed by
the defeat of the German army, with Hitler huddled in his Berlin
bunker, waiting to die?

And then the postwar world, taking a shape no one could have drawn in
advance: The Chinese Communist revolution, the tumultuous and violent
Cultural Revolution, and then another turnabout, with post-Mao China
renouncing its most fervently held ideas and institutions, making
overtures to the West, cuddling up to capitalist enterprise,
perplexing everyone. No one foresaw the disintegration of the old
Western empires happening so quickly after the war, or the odd array
of societies that would be created in the newly independent nations,
from the benign village socialism of Nyerere's Tanzania to the madness
of Idi Amin's adjacent Uganda. Spain became an astonishment. I recall
a veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade telling me that he could not
imagine Spanish Fascism being overthrown without another bloody war.
But after Franco was gone, a parliamentary democracy came into being,
open to Socialists, Communists, anarchists, everyone.

The end of World War II left two superpowers with their respective
spheres of influence and control, vying for military and political
power. Yet they were unable to control events, even in those parts of
the world considered to be their respective spheres of influence. The
failure of the Soviet Union to have its way in Afghanistan, its
decision to withdraw after almost a  cecade of ugly intervention,
wasthe most striking evidence that even the possession of
thermonuclear weapons does not guarantee domination over a determined
population.

The United States has faced the same reality. It waged a full-scale
war in Indochina, conducting the most brutal bombardment of a tiny
peninsula in world history, and yet was forced to withdraw. In the
headlines every day we see other instances of the failure of the
presumably powerful over the presumably powerless, as in Bolivia and
Brazil, where grassroots movements of workers and the poor have
elected new presidents pledged to fight destructive corporate power.

Looking at this catalogue of huge surprises, it's clear that the
struggle for justice should never be abandoned because of the apparent
overwhelming power of those who have the guns and the money and who
seem invincible in their determination to hold on to it. That apparent
power has, again and again, proved vulnerable to human qualities less
measurable than bombs and dollars: moral fervor, determination, unity,
organization, sacrifice, wit, ingenuity, courage, patience-whether by
blacks in Alabama and South Africa, peasants in El Salvador,
Nicaragua, and Vietnam, or workers and intellectuals in Poland,
Hungary, and the Soviet Union itself. No cold calculation of the
balance of power need deter people who are persuaded that their cause
is just.

I have tried hard to match my friends in their pessimism about the
world (is it just my friends?), but I keep encountering people who, in
spite of all the evidence of terrible things happening everywhere,
give me hope. Wherever I go, I find such people, especially young
people, in whom the future rests. And beyond the handful of activists
there seem to be hundreds, thousands, more who are open to unorthodox
ideas. But they tend not to know of one  another's existence, and so,
while they persist, they do so with the desperate patience of Sisyphus
endlessly pushing the boulder up the mountain. I try to tell each
group that they are not alone, and that the very people who are
disheartened by the absence of a national movement are themselves
proof of the potential for such a movement.

Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment (beware
of such moments!) but as an endless succession of surprises, moving
zigzag toward a more decent society. We don't have to engage in grand,
heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts,
when multiplied by millions of people, can quietly become a power no
government can suppress, a power that can transform the world.

Even when we don't "win," there is fun and fulfillment in the fact
that we have been involved, with other good people, in something
worthwhile. We need hope. An optimist isn't necessarily a blithe,
slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time. To be hopeful in bad
times is not being foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that
human history is a history not only of competition and cruelty but
also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our
lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do
something. If we remember those times and places-and there are so
many-where people have behaved magnificently, it energizes us to act,
and raises at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a
world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a
way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future
is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think
human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is
itself a marvelous victory.

Howard's ZNet page http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/howardzinn

Pieces on ZNet remembering Zinn

by Peter Bohmer http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/commentaries/4124

By Henry A. Giroux  http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/23780

Amy Goodman interviews with Noam Chomsky, Alice Walker, Anthony
Arnove, Naomi Klein
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/23757

by Greg Ruggiero http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/23759

by Paul Street http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/commentaries/4125




On 19th February 2010, the European Anti-Poverty Network Ireland will
host an international conference on the occasion of the 2010 European
Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion. The conference agenda
and a registration form can be found on www.eapn.ie.

 If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact the EAPN
on 01-8745737




European Network Against Racism (ENAR) Ireland is supporting the
co-ordination of European Week Against Racism in Ireland . During the
European Week Against Racism, thousands of people actively engage in
activities to promote and celebrate equal rights and the diversity of
Europe.  The Week centres around 21 March which was declared
International Day for the Elimination of all forms of Racial
Discrimination by the United Nations as a response to the murder of 69
anti-apartheid demonstrators in Sharpeville, South Africa in 1960.

If you are holding an event around this time to mark this occasion,
please contact Catherine, ENAR Ireland at EnarIreland@gmail.com by
19th February.

ENAR Ireland shall prepare a calendar of events.  We will be in touch
again over the coming weeks with details of the various events taking
place.

Kind regards,

Catherine

ENAR Ireland is a network of anti-racist organisations in Ireland and
is the Irish co-ordination of European Network Against Racism, an
EU-wide network of 600 NGOs.  For further details, contact us on
EnarIreland@gmail.com or check us out on Facebook.




A part-time Masters degree in Third Sector Management is being offered
by University College Cork to voluntary and community sector workers
who have experience of project management and co-ordination and who
would like to improve their knowledge and skills base.

The course is taught by the Department of Applied Social Studies in
association with the Departments of Food, Business and Development,
Management and Marketing, Accounting and Finance, Business Information
Systems, Government, Economics and Law. It will be taught one day a
week (Wednesday) over two years with provision for some Saturday
morning teaching. The programme will also include a Summer School in
UCC in June 2011.

Further information on this programme is available on our online
prospectus at www.ucc.ie/en/CKE75,

or by contacting Dr. F?ilim ? hAdhmaill, Dept. of Applied Social
Studies, on021 490 2616 or email f.ohadhmaill@ucc.ie

Applications can be made online through the Postgraduate Admissions
Centre at http://www.pac.ie by Monday 1st March 2010.



Crosscare National Traveller Suicide Awareness Project which is now in
its third year would like to invite you to participate in a strategic
planning event titled "What would you like to be celebrating in three
years time?"

The purpose of the event is to examine work which has been done to
date in partnership with stakeholders in relation to Traveller Suicide
awareness.  It is vital to examine opportunities which exist for
stakeholders to get involved in working with Travellers around the
issue of Mental Health and Suicide Awareness.

We would like to invite a representative from your organization to
participate in this event which will take place on:



Tuesday the 23rd of March 2010 in Clonliffe College from 11am until 3pm.

Lunch will be provided

The format for the day will include presentations from Traveller
projects who have engaged with the project and a round table
discussion with focused questions.  Your support will be gratefully
appreciated, and will help the project to develop a clear direction
for future work.



Please confirm your attendance along with any dietary requirements to
Petra Daly by emailing pdaly@crosscare.ie or by phoning 0861729168
before the 15th of March.



The National Traveller Suicide Awareness project would like to provide
Travellers and Traveller organizations with an opportunity to come
together to discuss the issues they are faced with when it comes to
taking on the issue of Suicide and mental health.


There has been a lot of very positive work happening and it is
important that we come together to share this. I am proposing to
establish a networking space for those who are interested. With this
in mind I propose to hold the first meeting of the National Traveller
Suicide Awareness Project Network on Tuesday 19th February.

The meeting will run from 11am until 3.30 pm  and will take place in
Clonliffe College which is close to Croke Park. If you are interested
in participating in the Network please let me know. Places are limited
to three per project or network. Traveller participation is essential

The vision for this space is that community workers Youth workers
health workers or anyone who has an interest in the area of Traveller
mental health and suicide awareness would come together to share
what?s working try and change what isn?t and as a result shape future
policy direction of the National Traveller Suicide Awareness Project.

For more information or to confirm your attendance please contact

Petra Daly at pdaly@crosscare.ie or  phone 086 1729168



The National Traveller suicide Awareness Project is holding a
Strategic planning event on 23rd of February from 11am to 3pm.

The day proposes to bring key stakeholders together to look at the way
forward for the project. If you are interested in having your say
about the future direction of the project then please put this date in
your diary

More information will follow in the coming weeks. For more details,
contact Petra at pdaly@crosscare.ie



The ITM Spring 2010 newsletter will be produced shortly. If you or
your organisation would like to use the ITM newsletter to highlight
achievements or local issues, contact Damien Walshe on 01-6796577
ordwalsheitm@gmail.com

Deadline for accepting information is February 19th.



All ITM members who wish to circulate positions available and upcoming
events etc can simply send information to be circulated to the
membership. Emails will be sent on Wednesday/ Thursday of every week.
Please send details by the Wednesday mornings at the latest to Damien
Walshe at dwalsheitm@gmail.com